Posts Tagged ‘Chimay’

With Omloop Het Niuewsblad and Sunday’s Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne just days away, we raise a glass of Trappist beer in toast and hail the stellar efforts of Dutch brewing. After all, you gotta wash those frites down with something. Budweiser would just be bad form, like showing up to race the cobbles on a Schwinn Varsity.

Belgium is not just bike race crazy, they’re bonkers about beer. Belly up to the bar and you have your choice of a wide range of styles from lambic, Flemish red, abbey, Oud bruin, pale and amber lagers to saison, dubbel and tripel. (No quadruple but here are the top 25.)

Master brewers.

When it comes to making beer with religious fervor, the Belgian Trappist monks are the masters. Trappist beers are considered by beer critics to be among the finest in the world.

Here’s the six pack: Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, and Westvleteren. That last one was named best beer in the world a few years back and the monks are now forced to ration sales. But Boonen is always good for a extra case.

There is no one Trappist taste profile and each of the abbeys brew their own distinctive recipes. The classic Chimay has aromas of malt, apricots and black currants. While the famous, deep chocolate colored Westvleteren 8 brings to mind figs, plums and raisins. Reviews of the Rochefort Ten mention a port-like complexity of raisins, plums, hard candy and sherry.

All Trappist beer is “bottle conditioned” which means, like wine, it’s only going to get better with age. Not like that six pack of Corona you had left over from last summer. For a wonderful little Belgian beer tasting blog, check out Mr. Cook.

For a beer to qualify for Trappist certification, the brewery must be in or near a monastery, monks must play a role in production and all profits must support the monastery or outside social programs. Would sponsoring the Quick Step team quality? Of course it does. Manager Patrick Lefevere backs the team bus up to the monastery loading dock after every big race.

Beer this way.

The monks take the three vows of stability, fidelity to monastic life, and obedience. At least two of those vows guarantee you a fantastic beer because you know they’re paying attention to the brewing process.

Throw in a near vow of silence and you have a fiendish focus on producing the heavenly elixir. God is watching and he hates Michelob Ultra — this despite Lance Armstrong’s claim that it “complements my active lifestyle.”

Those of us back in the states owe Belgium many thanks for inspiring the fabulous beer coming out of Fort Collins, Colorado. The New Belgium Brewery began as a wild idea after the founder took a bike trip across God’s gift to cobblestones. In fact, they even took back the Belgian power source — it’s the only wind-powered brewery in America.

Okay, we’ve saluting all things Dutch to in preparation for the cobblestones. We’ve waxed musical about Golden Earring and the classic Radar Love song, we’ve examined the Belgian fascination with frites and plumbed the mysteries of the Dutch Bike craze.

In other words, we’ve worked up quite a thirst. It being Friday, it’s time for a run to Beverages & More for a few sixers of the monk masterwork.

It’s not about the bike, it’s about the beer. As Joe Lindsey pointed out in his always hilarious Boulder Report, Lance Armstrong has three mugs of beer going at once. An impressive stunt, not unlike climbing Alpe d’Huez with several chimps on your back — only a superstar could pull that off.

In one hand, he’s got a pen and signed contract for a lucrative sponsorship deal with Anheuser Busch’s Michelob Ultra. In the other hand, he’s holding a Coors Light while trying to convince Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to bring the old Coors Classic stage race back to life, despite a massive hole in the state budget. Bike race, fund bankrupt schools, bike race, fund bankrupt schools, and the winner is….

And in his third hand — yeah, you knew Lance was super human — he’s dumping out a glass of Shiner Bock, his favorite Texas beer. The one he guzzles in the off-season unless, suddenly, there’s a multi million dollar deal for Michelob Ultra — see hand number one.

That’s plenty of suds to juggle and Twisted Spoke is sure that Radio Shack boss and buddy Johan Bruyneel is also pushing a big Belgian style ale toward Lance. Four hands on Armstrong? With a name like that anything is possible.

But let’s shove the money off the table and focus on the beer. Michelob, Coors and Shiner Bock are the wrong choices. As usual, the savvy Bruyneel is the closest to knowing the right beer choice for Lance. A step back for a moment — not from the bar, from said question.

First, what beer truly reflects Armstrong’s “lifestyle,” matches his product gestalt and defines the most famous endurance athlete in history? The answer lies in the Texan’s legendary devotion to all phases of training as July and the Tour de France draw near.

As Bruyneel and coach Chris Carmichael know, Lance goes into what he calls Elevated Monk Status. A monastic state of pure, unalterable, fiendishly focused dedication to the cause of winning another yellow jersey.

So yeah, you’re hanging with Lance in his backyard in Austin late next summer. He’s explaining how he nailed that pistelero Contador to the wall and Three Stooge-Slapped little Andy Schleck in the 2010 Tour.

Then he looks at you and says, “yo, grab a few cold monks from the cooler.” Sounds weird but you’ll get used to it. Because a Chimay ale will whomp a watery Coors or limp Michelob. It will put hair on your chest, like a trappist hair shirt. You may even start a Gregorian chant or give your bikes to charity. You may quote old scripture in French or recite threshold data from Lance’s old training logs. Don’t get too carried away, okay?

Twisted Spoke thinks it’s not too late: Lance, drop the Michelob Ultra. The Elevated Monk Status beer is the only way to go.

Beer, bike racing and Trappist monks. Nothing weird about that. With Omloop Het Niuewsblad and Sunday’s Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne just days away, we raise a glass of Trappist beer in toast and hail the stellar efforts of Dutch brewing. After all, you gotta wash those frites down with something. Budweiser would just be bad form, like showing up […]

(Note: This is our third installment of Dutch Treats in celebration of the fast approaching race season in Belgium.) The responsibility for the current Dutch Bike craze falls squarely on the Dutch. The wonderful irony is, the entire cycling universe is in ecstasy but not the Dutch. Not their style to get worked up about […]

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In our second installment of Dutch treats to celebrate the fast approaching Belgian racing season, we tackle the tantalizing subject of Belgian frites, the beloved Dutch snack. Bike racing and Belgian frites are so deeply intertwined in the culture that it’s fair to ask if one could survive without the other. There is no tour […]